Lake Garda Communities Celebrate Blue Flag for Water Quality
Great satisfaction for all those living around Garda, including vacationers, for the news that Sirmione, the Pearl of the Lake, has been awarded the prestigious European Blue Flag 2000. An accolade that, in our view, should not be exclusive to Sirmione alone but extended to all the towns overlooking the lake.
Recognition and Measures for Water Quality
Certainly Sirmione, given its strategic location, benefits from the attention that other towns around the lake have been dedicating for several years to this admired basin, envied by the entire world.
The large-scale interventions for the collection and purification of waters, especially black waters, which until a few years ago were completely discharged into the lake, have in recent years been finally and fortunately collected and transported to the large and efficient Peschiera wastewater treatment plant.
The ongoing dedication of the Azienda Speciale Consorzio Garda Uno has ensured that, regarding the Brescia side of Lake Garda, all 52 sampling points during the summer period—where water samples are regularly taken and subsequently analyzed by the Hygiene Office of the ASL di Brescia—resulted in complete bathing suitability. Similar positive results have also been confirmed for the Veneto side.
The Recognitions and Protection of the Lake
The “blue” flag, symbolizing complete bathing suitability, was hoisted for the first time last year during the 1999 tourist season: it was a great celebration.
Once again, as today, there is great satisfaction among all those who have worked for years, and continue to work, so that the entire Garda perimeter remains, and is kept, fully open for bathing.
Guido Maruelli, president of Garda Uno, openly states his satisfaction with the current results, emphasizing the importance of this circum-lake and sub-lake conduct capable of restoring and, above all, maintaining the waters of Italy’s largest lake in a clean state.
“If each municipality in past years had acted independently with autonomous or individual purification systems without reaching a consortium-based approach,” – says President Maruelli – “certainly the current level of water quality and the international recognitions obtained would never have been achieved. On this approach, it’s also appropriate that all other services offered by Garda Uno are addressed with the same supra-municipal methodology, in the interest of the entire Garda basin.”